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A gathering of all of Zukofsky’s poems outside of “A” — poems that are “absolute clarification, crystalcabinets full of air and angels” (Kenneth Rexroth).     Anew, sun, to fire summer
     leaves move toward the air
     from the stems of the branches

           fire summer fire summer
                  —from Anew

Here is the complete music-filled arc of Louis Zukofsky’s shorter verse collectedin one volume: lyrical love poems written to his wife Celia and son Paul; thegroundbreaking “Poem Beginning ‘The,’ ” “which sends up ‘The Waste Land’ andits cultural vision in a cloud of bricolage, a hilarious pastiche of quotes, canon andkitsch, high and low hopelessly intertwined” (Michael Palmer); the boisterous,riotous translations of Catullus; spare, brilliant nature poems as if written by anancient hokku master; his genius “ ‘Mantis’ ” sestina; the enigmatic, spiraling, andbeautiful last poems, “80 Flowers.” Anew: Complete Shorter Poetry is a book ofblessings and gifts for any poetry lover. ... Read more

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Hayashi Kyoko's story, Ritual Of Death, centers around her experience as a schoolgirl caught in the Nagasaki bombing. She was saved by the shadow of a school porter who had crossed in front of her at the moment of the flash. Along with stories, there are poems, essays and art, including photographs. In this collection, the editor aimed for a personal kind of expression, and work that not only shows concern for life and living, but does so with the artist's skill. ... Read more

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A critical retrospective of Creeley's work from 1952 to 1982
... Read more

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"Drawn & Quartered" documents a collaboration between preeminent American avant-garde poet Robert Creeley and award-winning artist Archie Rand. In Creeley's words: ''The procedure was for Archie to slide me an image on the litho paper. I'd try a take or two to get the feel, writing on a usual sheet of typing paper, then resolve on a particular quatrain, put it with the litho sheet related--and on to the next. So we worked through the afternoon until, finally, all fifty-four poems were finished. Then I copied each poem under its respective image on the litho sheet....I felt as if I had been in some fantastic traffic of narratives, all the echoes and presences and situations--like very real life indeed. I loved the almost baroque feel of the drawings, the echo of old-time illustrations and children's books. Whatever, Archie's sure got me. The rest you can judge for yourself.'' ... Read more

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Poetry. Photographs. A hardback original, EN FAMILLE includes 22 color photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Revelation
Here is a wonderful collaboration between two artists.Creeley's poem is more than simply descriptive of Dorfman's photos, portraits which are more than simply illustrative of his words.This compact, hardcover book is tobe "read" and reread in an entirely new way.For one whoseexposure to poetry has been limited since the end of his formal education,"En Famille" is a real revelation.

It is also a greatopportunity to obtain a miniature album of Elsa Dorfman's work for one'svery own.The photos, featuring faces both famous and less celebrated,those whose troubles may be widely known or only guessed at, really docapture the beauty of the subjects' humanity in ways we may not stop oftenenough to notice.They are beautifully reproduced on good quality,acid-free paper.

Finally! A superb collection of Dorfman's color portraits!
Dorfman has been making color portraits in her Boston studio for several years, and many great examples of her work are collected here for the first time.

This is a book worth waiting for. Dormfan's casual looking thoughskillfully executed photographs of ordinary people are a wonderful documentboth for her sitters and those of us who love well done portraits.

Here'shoping she will never retire, and that all of us might be fortunate enoughto find our way before her lens. ... Read more

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"So There: Poems 1976-1983" combines three earlier collections of Robe Creeley's work published by New Directions: "Hello, A Journal, February 29-May 3, 1976" (published 1978); "Later" (1979); and "Mirrors" (1983). This first gathering of the poet's later work continues but also stands in contrast to his early poems as presented in the monumental "Collected Poems 1945-1975" (University of California Press, 1982). Few poets have so clear a demarcation of their work. In 1976 Creeley set off to visit nine countries in the Far East, to explore his sense of self in a foreign landscape. He found not only a "company" of fellow beings but also a transformed sense of life and subsequently a new family. He sees today that these three books in a single volume emphasize the "determined change in my life they are the issue of." They record a watershed period when Creeley "moved beyond his early influences to become a unique master" (Publishers Weekly about "Mirrors"). In the essay "Old Poetry," the preface to "So There," Creeley looks back in "the work done" and the work to do: "Stay busy seems to be it." Stating it another way, fellow poet Caroline Kizer wrote that a "characteristic aspect of [Creeley's] genius is the way he gives substance to our ephemeral events: the events, which in accretion, make up our lives" (Washington Post Book World). Creeley would echo another master: "As Pound put it most succinctly, 'one is working on the life vouchsafed...' Here is my own evidence." "So There" records the rites of passage of his own particular life, and in its three volumes, Creeley writes with humility, maturity, and humane intelligence. Truly, as Hugh Kenner said, "he is one of the very few contemporaries with whom is it essential to keep in contact." ... Read more

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One of the most revered voices of contemporary American poetry, Robert Creeley has attained legendary status based on his leading role in several avant-garde movements, such as Black Mountain, Tish, and the Beats. Robert Creeley focuses on the first forty years of the poet's life - years of rebellion, restless travel, tumultuous liaisons, and anger and violence that gave his writing an idiosyncratic new voice of razor-sharp precision and vehemence. With his unfailing flair for recognising talent, and as a small press publisher and editor, he promoted the likes of Layton, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Olson, and Burroughs.Their stars rose while he scraped by, until his poetry collection "For Love" and a novel, "The Island", earned him fame and a critical acclaim largely denied the Beats. Since then his poetry has become increasingly autobiographical and nostalgic, dwelling on the deliberately commonplace, on decrepitude, and finally on death. In this biography, Ekbert Faas pioneers a new kind of 'life-writing'.It tells its stories through the emotions, thoughts, and, above all, language of the dramatis personae, exchanging the authorial omniscience of traditional biography for an utter fidelity to sources. Allowing for contradictory viewpoints, anecdotes are told and re-told, letting Creeley reveal himself beneath the myths created by self-invention, wishful thinking, and, sometimes, distortion. Excerpts from autobiographical writings by the poet's first wife, Ann McKinnon, complete this intriguingly colourful and complex picture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Robert Creeley, the first forty years
As a longtime reader of Robert Creeley's work, I was looking
forward to this biography. I should have figured that Creeley
would not authorize a "traditional" biographer, and Ekbert Faas's
juxtaposition of different perspectives and inclusion of a huge
chunk of (Creeley's first wife) Ann MacKinnon's autobiography/
diary as a 100 page coda make the book somewhat non-traditional
(although the "life-writing" technique, where the "voice" of
Creeley is present in the narrative, should be familiar to
any reader of Nick Tosches' fine biography of Dean Martin).
Creeley's pre-1970 poems would sometimes take a seemingly autobiographical moment and view it in intense detail, or take
a slice of the persona's stream-of-consciousness and break it
down into extreme close-up (not just to the level of the word,
but to the level of the syllable). This biography now provides
the "background" for those works. Many intimate details are given, but fortunately we are spared TOO MUCH intimate detail
and Mr. Creeley is able to keep some things private!
The book also does a fine job of showing Creeley's complex
relationships with literary figures and the literary community
over the years--RC has always devoted a lot of time to championing the
work of his fellow writers (and thus turned me on
to many writers who have become important components in my life--
thank you, Mr. Creeley!).
My only complaint about this book is that right near the end (before the MacKinnon narrative), biographer Faas pretty much
trashes the 80s/90s career of Creeley. It's as if Creeley's
work (and, as written by Faas, his life too!) has become bland
and commercial because RC is no longer as combative and angry
and frayed-at-the-edges. This reminds me of the people who
accuse punk-rockers of "selling out" when they stop cutting themselves with razorblades and smashing their heads against
concrete walls when they get past age 40. What's wrong with
Mr. Creeley enjoying life more, settling down, finding the
eternal verities in the commonplace, and being a happy person?
I admire the man's ability to evolve, and his work still uses
language in fresh and unexpected ways while leading me to see
life and relationships in similarly fresh and unexpected ways.
Faas's inability to see the "whole picture" of Creeley's life
leads me to question how much he really understood Creeley at
ANY period in his life.
Still, this is a necessary work for any Creeley reader or anyone
who cares about post-WWII American poetry.
I also commend Creeley for allowing his biographer such freedom (I'm reminded of Bob Dylan's film DON'T LOOK BACK
in that way), although I came away from the book with even more
respect for the man. Poetry is an important part of many people's
lives thanks to Robert Creeley (both through his own pioneering
work and his tireless championing of and providing an entryway into others' works), and this book does give the reader a sense
of the man behind the work. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Classic
1969'S Pieces is my favorite book by my favorite poet, Robert Creeley.

There are some wonderful poems in Pieces, but that is not the point. Format is. The longer poems are laid out top to bottom of page--left margin--next to short poems, or phrases and fragments that I also consider poems.

Things come and go--
then let them.

Tame
Malboro
Comb
Ticket.

Those are two scraps from Pieces. Creeley developed a real ability to take a few words, give no context, and lay them on the page so they draw the starkest of pictures. Take the second selection: someone is going someplace, but who and where is your call. So little writing, so much possibility.

Down the page the thoughts concrete imagery and poetry goes. As if your in Creeley's head, using his eye. It is stream of thought and sight.

I am not sure how much this experimental feel had to do with it being 1969, but Creeley continued to use techniques like this--in more moderation--into the 1990s

This whole book is also in The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975. ... Read more